December is the darkest and quietest month of the year. Winter spends its final days in silence, guarding the seeds of the many summer and autumn fruits, waiting for the light to slowly make them germinate, restoring them to a thousand lives.
Giuseppe Ungaretti writes: “Like a seed, my soul also needs the hidden tilling of this season.” Seeds are the protagonists of this month when fruits are now rare and not always edible. Often, the fruits of the same plant can only be consumed by some species and not by others. To begin, let’s examine the berries of the butcher’s broom (Ruscus aculeatus), of the Asparagaceae family: they are eaten by birds, for whom they are a precious source of energy during these cold months. The same berries, however, are toxic to humans and other mammals due to their saponin content, which can cause symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea.
Butcher’s broom is a small, evergreen, perennial shrub with a sturdy underground stem called a rhizome, which each year produces roots and adventitious stems 20 to 90 cm tall that become woody the following year.
The true leaves are very small and deciduous, reduced to whitish scales attached to the aerial stem; their function is performed by special, small, flattened branches called cladodes, each bearing a tiny, sharp thorn at the tip. The inconspicuous, barely visible, unisexual flowers are found on different plants (a dioecious species), occurring singly or in small clusters; they have no stalk and grow on the underside of the cladodes. The following winter, these flowers develop into globular, bright red berries, which remain on the plant for 2-3 months after ripening.
Butcher’s broom grows in warm, sunny areas with calcareous soil, in dry, rocky places, and in woodlands, especially in holm oak and oak forests. It is sensitive to severe cold, so it is found above 1,200 meters only in southern Italy; elsewhere in Italy, it rarely grows above 600 meters.
The common Italian name “Pungitopo” (Mouse Thorn) derives from the traditional peasant practice of protecting food stored in cellars or pantries from mice using bunches of this plant.
Holly is also widely cultivated as an ornamental plant and is a significant product in floriculture.
The fruits of the common holly (Ilex aquifolium), belonging to the Aquifoliaceae family, are toxic to humans, dogs, and horses. However, many species of birds and small mammals consume the drupes without hesitation.
The common holly is often seen as an evergreen shrub, but despite its slow growth, it can live up to 300 years, eventually becoming a tree with a straight trunk that can reach over 10 meters in height and 50 cm in diameter. The glossy, dark green leaves are evergreen; they last an average of 2 to 3 years and exhibit significant polymorphism: leaves on the lower branches have oval, wavy blades with thorny, serrated edges (6-8 spines per side), while those on the upper branches and suckers have entire blades with sharp tips. The spinescence serves as the species’ natural defense against grazing, so it is mainly present on the lower branches, while the upper leaves typically have smooth edges.
It is a dioecious plant: the female flowers have a double involucre and are gathered in clusters of 2-3 in the axils of the previous year’s leaves. The corolla has four white petals edged with red. The male flowers have four stamens, while the female ones have a pistil with a superior ovary topped by four almost sessile stigmas. On female plants, the flowers, fertilized primarily by bees, produce globose, bright red drupes containing 3-5 hard seeds (pyrenes), which are dispersed mainly by blackbirds and thrushes. The bright red drupes, contrasting sharply with the green foliage, are a clear adaptation for dispersal by birds.
This species grows in beech, fir, and oak-hornbeam forests, usually in the shrub layer, while outdoors it generally adopts an arboreal habit. It prefers medium light, moist, well-drained, nutrient-rich, often decalcified and acidified soils, at altitudes between 0 and 1400 m.
Common holly is present in all regions of Italy; now rare in the wild, it has become a typical Christmas plant and is therefore widely cultivated as an ornamental.
Black thorn (Prunus spinosa), a member of the Rosaceae family, is undoubtedly the most important food source, especially during this season, for many animals, including birds and mammals such as hares and foxes. Unlike the other species mentioned above, the fruits of this species, known as sloes, can also be consumed by humans. They provided a valuable source of energy and vitamins for our foraging ancestors, and today, sloes are used to make jams, syrups, liqueurs, brandies, and jellies.
Black thorn is a bushy shrub that sometimes grows to the size of a small tree. It is a perennial, deciduous plant with a sparse, irregular crown and is very thorny. This species, reaching up to 3 meters in height, tends to produce numerous shoots capable of rooting, which aids in vegetative propagation. The leaves, which appear after the flowers, are alternate, lance-shaped, with a dark green upper surface and a lighter, hairy underside. The flowers bloom between February and April. They are hermaphroditic, solitary but clustered, and have a short stalk. The corolla consists of five white, slightly oval petals. The fruits are spherical, blue-black or blue-purple drupes, 10–15 mm in diameter, with a frosty coating when ripe. Initially very sour and tart, they become more palatable after ripening, usually occurring with the first frosts.
Native to Europe and the Caucasus, it is a sun-loving pioneer plant that grows in abandoned lands up to 1,600 meters above sea level. Hardy and adaptable, it thrives in poor, stony soils, commonly growing at the edges of coppices and in shrublands along slopes in uncultivated, sunny areas. Thanks to its easy rooting, it forms thorny thickets so impenetrable that they protect other plants and birds, providing an ideal nesting refuge.
When we think of a bird eating a fruit, we can hardly imagine how this might happen and how different feeding habits might affect the plant’s ability to spread. Most often, we observe them pecking at the pulp or swallowing the fruitlets, but in the case of mistletoe (Viscum album), a member of the Santalaceae family, we can observe different approaches to its white berries. Thrushes, waxwings, fieldfares, blackbirds, and mistle thrushes feed on the sticky pulp and release the intact seeds through their feces, thus allowing the plant to spread. The mistle thrush, in particular, is so fond of mistletoe berries that it has the Latin name Turdus viscivorus (literally “mistletoe-eating thrush”!).
Nuthatches, blue tits, and coal tits, on the other hand, crush the seed to feed on the embryo, thus preventing germination.
Finally, Blackcaps eat only the external pulp but not the seed, which remains near the mother plant and can germinate only if it falls.
But I’d rather you read about mistletoe, how this beautiful plant takes advantage of its guests, and why we should kiss under its branches to start the new year off right in Maria Beatrice Lupi’s wonderful article.
Credits
Author: Anna Lacci is a science communicator and expert in environmental education, sustainability, and place-based teaching. She is the author of documentaries, nature books, workbooks, interdisciplinary teaching resources, and multimedia informational materials.
Translated by Maria Antonietta Sessa
